Player: CB Beanie Bishop Jr.
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: A rookie college free agent, Beanie Bishop Jr. is taking the lion’s share of first-team slot reps. While he has had his ups and downs, he has generally held his own. The Steelers are trying to get a long early look at him to audition for the starting slot defender role. They need somebody to fill in for at least the first eight games due to Cameron Sutton’s suspension.
Beanie Bishop Jr. is endeavoring to make one Pittsburgh Steelers trivia question a lot easier in the near future. When the next person asks who the last rookie free agent was to start the season opener, he wants to be the answer. And by the looks of it, he has a pretty good chance of it, at least up to this point.
Signed after the 2024 NFL Draft with a $25,000 signing bonus, Beanie Bishop Jr. is undersized but talented. Despite his relatively short stature, he has good ball skills and speed, and he punches above his weight.
Though he lacks quite the same physicality of Mike Hilton, Bishop does hold the edge in speed and coverage. He has spent some of his time this offseason studying the former Steelers slot defender within this defense as homework. Doing so, he should have a good sense of what the coaches want him to do.
So far, the Steelers have been giving him quite a long look with the first-team defense. The only times Bishop hasn’t been with the starters in nickel packages have involved three-safety looks, DeShon Elliott moving down into the slot.
The Steelers tried to cover their bases by signing Cameron Sutton to play in the slot, but they won’t have him for nearly half the season. He will open the year serving an eight-game suspension, so guys like Bishop will have to fill in.
At least that is what he intends to do, starting by making the 53-man roster. Even if he starts, Bishop might still have to carve out a niche on special teams. But we will see where padded practices lead on Monday and if he continues to see the same quality of opportunity when the Steelers take the field at Saint Vincent College again.
As the season progresses, Steelers players’ stocks rise and fall. The nature of the evaluation differs with the time of year, with in-season considerations being more often short-term. Considerations in the offseason often have broader implications, particularly when players lose their jobs, or the team signs someone. This time of year is full of transactions, whether minor or major.
A bad game, a new contract, an injury, a promotion—any number of things affect a player’s value. Think of it as a stock on the market, based on speculation. You’ll feel better about a player after a good game, or worse after a bad one. Some stock updates are minor, while others are likely to be quite drastic, so bear in mind the degree. I’ll do my best to explain the nature of that in the reasoning section of each column.
